We present a generalized distance metric that can be used to identify routing table entries and implement routing strategies to reach the root node for a given key, in DHT (Distributed Hash Table) networks such as Chord, Kademlia, Tapestry, and Pastry. The generalization shows that all the four DHT algorithms are in fact, the same algorithm but with different parameters in distance representation. This paper also proposes that nodes can have routing tables of varying sizes based on their memory capabilities. But Each node must have at least two entries, one for the node closest from it, and the other for the node from whom it is closest, regardless of memory capacity. With this condition, messages will still reach the correct root nodes. We also further observe that in any network, if the distance metric of the DHT is same at all the nodes, then the root node for a key will also be the same, irrespective of the size of the routing table at different nodes.

翻译：我们提出了一种广义距离度量，可用于识别分布式哈希表（DHT）网络（如Chord、Kademlia、Tapestry和Pastry）中的路由表条目，并实现到达给定键根节点的路由策略。该泛化表明，这四种DHT算法本质上是同一算法，仅在距离表示的参数上有所不同。本文还提出，节点可根据其内存能力拥有不同大小的路由表。但每个节点必须至少包含两个条目：一个指向离它最近的节点，另一个指向它能够最近到达的节点，无论内存容量如何。在此条件下，消息仍能正确到达目标根节点。我们进一步观察到，在任何网络中，若所有节点的DHT距离度量相同，则无论不同节点路由表大小如何，某一键的根节点也将相同。